Author: Emma Jones

  • The 70-year wait: Dublin embraces the birth of abstract art with Hilma Af Klint: Artist and Visionary

    The 70-year wait: Dublin embraces the birth of abstract art with Hilma Af Klint: Artist and Visionary

    For decades, the origins of abstract art have been heavily credited to an abundance of male artists. However, Swedish artist Hilma Af Klint (1862-1944) predates these painters as she had completed a collection of visionary works long before her male counterpart had even began experimenting with abstraction.   

    Now considered one of Europe’s most renowned abstract painters, Af Klint’s talent has made its way to the National Gallery of Ireland for its first major exhibition dedicated to her work. The six-week-long display is titled Hilma Af Klint: Artist and Visionary and is set to run from 15 October 2026 to 7 February 2027. It also features early portraits and landscapes, some of which have never been publicly exhibited before. In fact, at her own request, Af Klint’s works were sealed away from the public eye during her lifetime and for 20 years following her death. Her distinctly vibrant works were profoundly ahead of her time as they tested the boundaries between art, science, and spirituality and were largely unknown outside of Sweden.

    Photo credit: Emma Jones

    The Dublin-based exhibition, developed in collaboration with the Hilma Af Klint Foundation, unfolds less like a traditional exposition and more like a navigation into a visual system of a vibrant mind. Upon entry to the gallery,  visitors are met with a custom painted staircase painted in a vivid homage to Af Klint’s Altarpiece No. 1.


    Photo credit: Emma Jones

    Initially, rooms 6-10 displayed her early works of landscapes and botanical illustrations, the safe and conventional pieces that paid her Stockholm rent. Once you turn that corner, the rooms are now suddenly illuminated with massive vibrant masterpieces such as The Swan (1914) or The Altarpieces (1915). Suddenly, you are confronted with the concealed birth of abstract art, which was once locked away in the dark as Af Klint felt as though the world wasn’t ready to experience her spiritual work just yet.  

    Photo credit: Emma Jones

    The exhibitions curator Janet McLean told TheCity that she has been in discussion with the Hilma Af Klint Foundation regarding an Irish collaboration since 2021. Five years on, that persistence has grown into a confidence that Irish audiences are finally ready be faced with her work, following a hesitancy about “connecting abstract art and the land”. “We all feel a longing for connection, for goodness, solace, and consolation. Af Klint was very interested in looking away from conventional religion and towards spirituality, theosophy, and anthroposophy. So, I think this is something the Irish are very much in tune with,” said McLean.

    McLean also highlighted the spiritualism within Af Klint’s paintings, explaining that “these great bodies of work were never intended to be made for exhibitions in the art world in museums and galleries, they were made with a sort of higher purpose”. “She didn’t make art to be known or to have her own reputation. There was no ego involved, it was never about her,” said McLean, “it was always about the spiritual message to communicate to the viewer as if her spiritual art was coming through her as if she was an instrument or a conduit.” 

    Photo credit: Emma Jones

    Roxie Gillespie, a final-year paint student at NCAD felt as though Af Klint was “ahead of her time”. “I think it’s very important to see a woman’s hard work in this current climate,” Gillespie said. “It’s quite profound to have something that is inherently discovered by women, explored by women, and made by women.”

    Reflecting on Af Klint’s decision to leave her work for future generations, Gillespie was struck by the intention behind it. “I found that everything felt very intentional, I love the existentialism in her work and I think it is interesting to make something not knowing who is going to be viewing it in the context of a future society, when you’re not around yourself to see the reaction to it.” 

    Photo credit: Emma Jones

     

     

     

     

  • Chloe Michelle Howarth on Uplifting Queer Narratives Through Modern Irish Literature

    Chloe Michelle Howarth on Uplifting Queer Narratives Through Modern Irish Literature

    COVID-19 arrives in March of 2020 with a peculiar pause as society closes its doors. In Dublin, IADT student Chloe Michelle Howarth begins to pack her bags to head back to her family home in West Cork to quarantine. Somewhere within that still isolation, Howarth began to write a queer coming-of-age novel which will go on to sell 70,000 copies to date.

    Now, from her home in Brighton, Chloe Michelle Howarth tells me a familiar story of her daily lockdown strolls within the 2-kilometre limits of her home. She remembers the cows, the rabbits, the hedgerows, how the sun hit the grass in a twinkling light. Howarth photographed the things she found alluring and typed up fragments detailing the most beautiful corners of the county that she loved so much. What began as excerpts in the notes app of her iPhone would soon become an integral part of her debut novel Sunburn.  

    “My parents’ house in the country is truly in the most beautiful 2 kilometre radius, I wouldn’t ever want to leave. The Irish countryside is just so gorgeous. I was so lucky because it’s just very vast, very rural”. 

    Eventually, these descriptions inspired Crossmore, a fictional rural Irish town and the roots of her acclaimed debut novel Sunburn. “Crossmore is kind of tapestry of the most beautiful parts of West Cork,” said Howarth, “I essentially just got to describe the nature of Ireland and put the beauty down on a page, which I could do forever.”

    With two published novels and another set to release next summer, Howarth originally never expected to even pursue publication. Sunburn was initially a passion project without any pressures of publication.  

    “The story just kind of spiralled away from me as I was writing it, and I think that’s the beauty of not having any audience at all in mind when you’re writing something because you can just be so creative. And then, eventually, you kind of look at it and you go, oh, this is all starting to form its own narrative!” 

    Writing nuanced novels with sapphic themes comes quite easy to Howarth. But if the summer landscape gave Sunburn its setting, it was Howarth’s own familiarity with the theme that provided the story its emotional core. Queerness, she says, was never something that had to be intentionally inserted into her writing. It was simply there. 

    They say to write what you know, and for this Cork-born queer author, “I knew I wanted to write a queer story, and I knew it was going to be set in the Irish countryside. It just wouldn’t feel natural to me to write a story that wasn’t centred around queer characters,” said Howarth. 

    Photo credit: Emma Jones

    Howarth’s bibliography moves backwards through Ireland’s queer history with Sunburn being set primarily in the 1990s, and her second novel Heap Earth Upon It retreating even further back to the 1960s. Howarth flourishes in rewriting sapphic romances into eras of criminalised homosexuality in Ireland.  

    “The 90s was such a turbulent time for queer people but also such a hopeful time,” said Howarth, “I decided to start the real narrative of Sunburn during that time as homosexuality was only decriminalised in ’93.” 

    Howarth suggests that in a small, rural town like Crossmore, the law doesn’t necessarily reflect social attitudes in such a confined community. Howarth “wanted to create this little village so far away from the rest of the world where these major things were happening globally for the queer community that weren’t really touching this conservative little place”. 

    Take it back to the 60s and Howarth tells a story of gothic sapphic obsession and an elusive past in the fictional Irish town of Ballycrea. For Howarth, her debut novel had quite a sun-soaked and “nostalgic visual identity tied to the 90s”. In her second book, she moves further back in history to an alternative, darker, and more claustrophobic scene of religious repression and desire forced into the shadows of a heavily Catholic Ireland. 

    Heap Earth Upon It explores the complexities of same sex attraction and the shame that accompanies it in a period of forbidden queerness. Particularly in historically conservative spaces, Howarth said she doesn’t “think there will ever be enough different forms of representation, we certainly do need a lot more queer media”.  

    Queer people existed in Ireland all along, even when history left them on the sidelines in whispers and secrecy. In writing sapphic romance in historically Irish contexts, Howarth provides those erased lives somewhere to exist on a page. The now 30-year-old said that she “didn’t really search for queer media” in her youth. In West Cork, “such things didn’t exist at the time. I was just very sheltered, you know, it wasn’t out there. I wish there had just been more queerness, and I wish it had been more accessible,” said Howarth on the lack of queer fiction in her teenage years. 

    Looking into the future of queer literature, Howarth “would like to see more gender, non-conforming characters, more transgender characters, and also the nuance of gender and sexuality as a whole”. 

    “I want someone to explore the fact that it’s not such a black and white experience. There are a lot of fantastic trans writers in Ireland, and I want them to get more opportunities to tell their stories,” said Howarth. 

    On her upcoming novel Aftertaste, which releases in June 2027, Howarth speaks about the aesthetics and themes featured in her third publication. “I’m glad you asked, I haven’t got to answer a lot of questions about the new book yet!” 

    “I feel like this story isn’t as stuck into a specific visual, whereas I think my last two books were certainly very seasonal and visually tangible,” said Howarth, “I think it’s actually a very hopeful book in comparison to the others, the characters, regardless of what happens to them remain very hopeful. And that is all I can say for now”. 

    From the quiet fields of West Cork to the fictional paths of Crossmore and Ballycrea, Howarth’s work to date has always merged Ireland, queerness, and history. For some, that is what makes the arrival of Aftertaste so intriguing. After two stories saturated in nostalgia, inhibition, and buried desire, Howarth simply describes her newest novel as hopeful. Although the details remain confidential, the message is clear: there are still queer stories waiting to be written and told, and Howarth holds a space for them to be heard. 

  • Governments “decision to ignore their own workforce is a political choice that cannot be tolerated any longer

    Governments “decision to ignore their own workforce is a political choice that cannot be tolerated any longer

    The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) has voted in favour of work-to-rule industrial action to obtain what it calls a  “credible pay settlement” from the Government. 

    According to the INTO over 48,000 of its members are set to partake in industrial action due to continuous public sector pay conflicts. 

    The work-to-rule action will begin on October 5 said the teacher’s union. This will result in primary and special needs educators refusing to work beyond their contracted daily teaching hours.  

    Assistant general secretary of INTO, Ciarán Gallagher, told TheCity that a “massive mandate of 95.5% of members voted in favour of action in our ballot with a 57.5% voting turnout of approximately 28,000 members”.

    Gallagher told TheCity that a nationwide one-day strike will also take place on October 14, where it is understood that the unions members will join public sector workers in protest. They are calling for the Government to deliver public sector pay agreements containing tangible pay increases. 

    The dispute arose ensuing the Governments’ refusal to deliver pay certainty for the second half of 2026 following their failure to honour the previous public service pay agreement from the first half of the year. 

    Gallagher told TheCity that the INTO is “rightfully enraged” as the Governments “decision to ignore their own workforce is a political choice that cannot be tolerated any longer”.

    Gallagher stated that members of the union have been “driven to take industrial action” as most members are “struggling to make ends meet.” “There is increasing frustration relating to the uncertainty surrounding salaries, particularly amid a cost-of-living crisis. Thousands of teachers and their families are unable to cope with the cost of food, travel, energy, fuel, mortgages, and rent,” he said.  

    When asked about the strike’s immediate impacts on daily school operations, Gallagher said that “any negative impact of these measures on schools will be solely the fault of a government who has forced us to act as they do not appreciate the efforts of teachers, or seemingly, any public servant for that matter”.

    “The Government have continually prioritised tax breaks for big businesses ahead of workers. In the last year, they funded at least €1.3 billion for hospitality business owners, property developers and haulage companies, with no benefit to consumers or staff. Now all that appears to be available for workers is €200 in tax cuts for 2027.” 

    Photo credit: Pexels

    Abbie Shevlin, a primary school teacher at Bracken Educate Together in Balbriggan, County Dublin told TheCity that she hopes the issue is resolved before the strike day on October 14. “Strike days in schools can seriously impact children’s education and their families, so I’m hoping it doesn’t escalate to that.” 

    “The job is getting less attractive by the day. The salary really hasn’t changed much to match the rate of inflation or cost of living, much like every job in Ireland at the minute.” 

    Final-year primary teaching student at DCU and student teacher Shauna Lea said that she “stands with the action being taken” by the INTO and believes the union’s voice “bridges the gap between teachers and the government.” 

    “They are not only standing up for the current educators, but they are also paving the way for us future teachers that will be entering the profession in coming years. I think it’s important that their concerns are being heard.”  

    The union’s executives plan to gather in October to “consider escalation” if deemed necessary, said INTO general sectary John Boyle.